


among the garbage and the flowers

by celaenos



Category: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Genre: Fic Exchange, Gen, Ghosts of Christmas, Holiday Fic Exchange, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, One Shot, References to Drugs, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21663154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/pseuds/celaenos
Summary: There’s a sketch in there, somewhere.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	among the garbage and the flowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [red_b_rackham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_b_rackham/gifts).



> happy yuletide!!

Matt is high.

It is… not an optimal time to be high on pain medication, but there isn’t really much that he can do about it—back surgery nonsense and all. He’s mad that he’s high. Because the initial surgery was _a year ago,_ and it’s only messing up a little bit now and the doctor did some more doctor-y things and then gave him some Vicodin and now—he’s high at work again.

It’s probably because of the medication that he is currently sitting in an empty theatre, staring at what appears to be himself as a nine-year-old.

If not… then there is something very wrong happening to his brain. Either way, nine-year-old Matty looks up, picks his nose, and then waves at him.

“Hello?” Matt calls out, wary.

“Hi,” Little Matt calls back.

“Um… are you wearing Christmas pajamas?” Matt asks, because… every other question seems too big for his drug-addled brain to handle right now. Nine-year-old Matty looks down at himself and then nods. “We’re Jewish,” Matt tells him, though, presumably, Little Matt is already aware of this fact.

“They’re hand-me-downs from cousin Jake,” Little Matty tells him with a shrug.

“Oh… right, sure. That makes sense.” Matt opens and closes his eyes. Little Matty is still there. “This isn’t good,” Matt mumbles to himself.

…

…

Matt walks into his office and slams the door open. The bang makes Little Matty jump. “DANNY!” Matt hollers.

“WHAT?”

“COME HERE A SEC.”

“WHY?”

“JUST DO IT!”

“WHY?”

“DANNY, NOW!”

“MATTY, I’M—”

“NOW, PLEASE!” Matt turns and stares at Little Matty and then sits down hard behind his desk.

“What the hell is wrong with—”

“Do you see him?” Matt points, cutting him off. Danny turns and looks over at Little Matty. Directly at the space that he is occupying.

“See who?” Danny asks and Matt promptly sits down and knocks his head on the table a few times. “Are you… you know, on the level?”

“When have I ever been?” Matt asks.

“Good point,” Danny says, and then walks back out of the room. “TELL ME IF YOU NEED SOMETHING!” he hollers over his shoulder.

Matt just throws a thumbs up into the air and does not lift his head.

…

…

Little Matty disappears—thankfully—sometime after lunch. Matt riffs a few bits off of him for sketches, because he might as well do something productive even if he is going out of his mind. When he goes to the bathroom and gets a sandwich he brings a second one back to his office, but Little Matty in his Christmas-Jewish PJs is nowhere to be found.

“Huh,” Matt says, to the empty office.

Suzanne walks in, arms chock full of papers. She drops some on his desk, stares at him sideways and then says, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Back medication.”

“Again?”

“Yep.”

“Do you want me to stay in here with you?” she asks, with far more care than he probably deserves.

“Nah,” Matt shrugs. “I’m gonna just… ya know… walk around a bit and talk to the people. Get some ideas.”

“Talk to ‘the people’? Who… are _the people?”_

“You know! Lucy, Darius, Harry… Sim, maybe. My people. Do you want this sandwich? I got one for… well, it doesn’t matter, he’s gone now.”

“I’m… gonna tell Danny to follow you around,” Suzanne says. She takes the sandwich. “I don’t like tuna,” she frowns, but bites into it anyway.

“Don’t tell Danny that,” Matt orders.

“Yeah, I’m gonna.”

“DON’T DO THAT!” Matt hollers, but she’s already gone.

…

…

“Danny, do you think that the word ‘dollop’ is funny?”

“Dollop?”

“Yeah.”

“Used how?”

“Like, you know… the regular way.”

“What is the regular way to use the word dollop?”

“The normal way that people do.”

“Which is?”

“THE NORMAL REGULAR WAY THAT PEOPLE USE THE WORD!”

Danny folds his newspaper down a bit to look at Matt seriously. His eyebrow is cocked up in that way that he does when he thinks maybe that Matt is losing it. Which, he probably is. “No, I do not think ‘people’ think the word ‘dollop’ is funny when used the normal regular way,” he answers calmly.

Matt scratches at the paper with far more vigor than is probably necessary. Danny goes back to reading the newspaper and ignoring him.

…

…

Matt is sitting in the stairwell scribbling on a pad of paper and trying to turn into a genius, and also, another Matt is walking down the stairs towards him.

Other Matt says, “You’re eating it.”

“No, I’m not,” Matt argues. “Wait—” he looks up and does a double-take. “Ohhhhhh I am… very, very high right now,” he exclaims.

“Yes,” Other Matt agrees. “Sooo incredibly high.”

“This is… not good.”

“Very eloquent,” Other Matt chides.

“Fuck you, I’m high.”

“Among other things,” Other Matt quips easily.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Other Matt waves his hands around in the air like that’s supposed to mean something. Matt frowns at him. “Right, that was probably confusing,” Other Matt says. “We’re hallucinating. Well, you are. I’m one of the hallucinations. I’m _The Present,_ ” he waves his arms again, like that means something else.

“I’m… no. I’m not going to have a conversation with myself.”

“But we do that all the time.”

“But, like, the regular way. The way that normal people talk to themselves.”

“Do you hear yourself?”

“DO YOU?”

Other Matt smirks at him. It’s incredibly annoying. Matt is going to rethink his smirks and maybe do some practicing in the mirror, later. When he’s not high or losing his mind. Danny should have told him that he looks stupid and annoying like that. 

“What is going on?” Matt asks.

“Christmas miracles,” Matt says, with the smirk and the hands.

“WE’RE JEWISH,” Matt yells. “Also, I’m pretty sure that it’s November.”

“Is it?” Other Matt smirks.

“I’m gonna… go away now,” Matt says and then leaves.

…

…

Harriet is not sympathetic to his hallucination.

To be fair, he approaches her like a bit of a maniac and then yells at her for a couple of minutes for things that aren’t entirely her fault and most definitely his, but he doesn’t want to admit that, just yet.

They leave things on a weird, but slightly positive note after Harry tells him that he is being an ass and he agrees with her and then apologizes.

“Good talk,” Matt says and tucks a pencil behind his ear. When Harriet rolls her eyes and leaves Matt slumps down onto the couch and tries to take a little nap. That will cure everything. Sleep is a thing of… good things. Health. Something like that.

When he wakes up an hour and a half later, an old man is standing in the doorway.

“Oh, shit,” the old man says. “I forgot about this.”

“Sorry?” Matt rubs at his eyes, there’s something about the guy that looks a bit familiar but today has been kicking his ass and he doesn’t really trust his instincts right now.

“I was _The Present,_ and now I’m the _Goddamn Future,_ ” the old man sighs.

“I’m… today has not been great,” Matt says. “Could you… speak slowly and in small sentences for me?”

“You’re high as fuck, and trying to write a Christmas show even though no one wants that and it’s _November_ and writing ahead is very stupid because you can barely manage to write the _current_ show, but, stupid is your middle name,” the old man says, not unkindly.

“That’s a rude thing to say to a person.”

“Yeah, but I’m you, so,” he shrugs.

“This is not… I think I should go to the hospital.”

“Nah,” Old Matt says. “We’re fine. It’s just a weird day. Once we wake up tomorrow the meds are out of our system and in like two days our back is fine for like… a solid fifteen years. Word of advice though, the Christmas show is a dumb idea. We tried it last year, no need to repeat. A Hanukkah show though…” he trails off, lost in thought. “Hum, that could be good.”

Matt gets a lot of ideas in the span of a very short number of seconds and he seems to have lost his pencil, which is currently a travesty. Old Matt laughs at him.

“Are you here to give me some advice or something?”

“I just did.”

“Better advice? Life advice? Something worthwhile that’s not just making fun of me?”

Old Matt goes serious and quiet for a minute, then he smiles in a way that has none of the hints of the shitty smirk Other Matt had. Maybe he learns a thing or two, after all. It’s a relief in of itself. For once in his goddamn life, Matt stills and shuts his mouth.

“Be kinder to Harriet,” Old Matt says. “Relax, once in a while. You’re a talented guy but you’re killing yourself a bit for it. Don’t take more of the pain medication than they tell you to ever again.”

“Yeah, that’s smart.”

“I’m a smart guy.”

“Thanks.”

“No, not you, me.”

“I am you.”

“Not the smart version. Not yet.”

“Fuck you,” Matt says… to himself.

Old Matt smiles; the smirk version. Matt jumps up and is all ready to tell him off but when he manages to get off the couch, Old Matt is gone from the doorway and Matt is just standing there looking at the empty hallway like an idiot who’s high on pain meds.

“I need to go back to sleep,” he mutters.

…

…

“Where have you _been?”_ Danny asks.

“Hallucinating Christmas ghosts of myself.”

“It’s November.”

“I’m aware.”

“You’re Jewish.”

“I know that, too.”

“Matty, are you… okay?”

“I don’t think that I am, no,” he says, calm. Danny’s face goes all weird and Matt thinks for one terrible moment that Danny is going to walk over and hug him and make him feel embarrassed about his entire existence, but Danny doesn’t do that. “I’m going to be fine, though,” Matt promises. “I just need to sleep and take a few less meds.”

“Matty—”

“I’m good,” Matt promises. When he looks in the doorframe behind Danny, three figures look back at him. Little Matt picks his nose, Other Matt smirks, and Old Matt gives him a soft, fond smile. Matt looks over at Danny instead. “Merry Christmas, brother,” he says.

“Happy Hanukkah, Matt,” Danny says. “We’re gonna… sit down here and drink some water and call a doctor.”

“Nah,” Matt waves him off. “I gotta work, it’s Wednesday and I’ve got nothing but Christmas ghosts.”

“Again, I am going to tell you that Halloween was like three days ago.”

Matt grips Danny’s shoulder and looks at him seriously. “I love you, you know that, right?”

“I do.”

“Okay,” Matt smiles. “I’m gonna sleep now.”

“Best idea you’ve had all day,” Danny says and shoves him down onto the couch. The last thing that Matt feels is a blanket being tucked around him. He dreams about Harriet doing the dolphin voice to make his nine-year-old self laugh.

There’s a sketch in there, somewhere.


End file.
